


Partitions

by Churbooseanon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-26 23:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1707200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Epsilon taught him a lot before self-destructing, nearly taking him with it. The most important thing he had learned, though, was how to compartmentalize. Better than anyone he had ever met, and better than anyone he was certain he ever would meet. Epsilon remembered it too well. How to fracture oneself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Partitions

He says yes when the Counselor offers him the job. What else can he do? He’s certified Article Twelve, and when he looks at the way the Counselor watches him, he knows they won’t free him from that, free him from here, without owning him in some way. They fear what he knows, what he might know, what Epsilon might have been. Thing is, they can’t prove it, can’t be certain, and so they are scared of him, of what he might know.

They should be.

He had another mind in his head, another person, full of memories of not one but two lives and something altogether different as well. He had felt that mind unravel in his own; spilling its thoughts, its memories, its pain in him like an oil tanker on a pristine beach, staining him forever no matter how hard he tried to scrub it all away. Epsilon taught him a lot before self-destructing, nearly taking him with it.

The most important thing he had learned, though, was how to compartmentalize. Better than anyone he had ever met, and better than anyone he was certain he ever would meet. Epsilon remembered it too well. How to fracture oneself. To split and box away the things the Alpha couldn’t handle, couldn’t face, couldn’t be. After all, what computer program couldn’t partition itself?

So when the Counselor asked if he could work with another agent, face another AI, Washington had said no. And when the job had been offered he had agreed. Because otherwise he would be trapped, forever, unable to find some way to be free of what Epsilon and Project Freelancer had made him. A job that would give him some way to figure out how to live life again, how to be something more than what he had been broken down into.

And he wanted answers.

All his time spent certified Article Twelve and he never found the answers he wanted. All that time to peruse through the answers Epsilon had unwittingly given him. Too much time to draw his own conclusions from what the Counselor and his ‘therapists’ told him. And yet never answers to the questions he wanted. Never an answer to why a group of Freelancers rebelled. He could understand Texas, she didn’t seem to give a fuck about anyone’s rules or goals. But York… North…

It’s why he lies to the Counselor. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he was faced with Wash or North. Or even, frankly, Delta or Theta. Okay, so Theta would probably still have nothing to do with him, but Delta… Delta would ask questions, want to know more, would get to the bottom of things far too quickly. Maybe that was why York had helped Texas despite everything. But he didn’t know, couldn’t know, unless he found them. Which, given his personnel records, Wash doubts they’ll ever let him do. If he did, he’d ask, and he’s certain the Counselor and Director know that.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t keep his ear to the ground when he’s out on missions. They don’t let him interact with many people at all, but there are a few. The people he sees coming in to base. Recovery Command sometimes, but she rarely goes off book when talking to him. The pilot one time he had to be airlifted with his mongoose out to a more remote location. There are whispers of York being stray, bets after the second Freelancer is brought down on how long until the ‘top dogs’ are brought down, or at least to heel. It gives him hope, more than he ever expected to grasp at.

Every time he gets a beacon he finds himself quietly praying. Let it be someone else. Let it be one of the lesser agents he rarely interacted with. Let it be agents removed from the program before he broke onto the leader boards. Let it be Florida. Let it be Wyoming. Let it be someone he wouldn’t mourn.

Then it’s York laying stretched out before him.

The part of him that is more Epsilon than Washington, more Alpha than David, thrusts itself into overdrive. Guilt? Nope, don’t need that. Throw it behind a little wall in your mind and don’t break. Grief is unnecessary too; behind the wall it goes. Anger, fear, pain, confusion, all behind the wall. Shut them down, refuse to acknowledge them. Don’t be Washington, don’t be David, don’t even be the broken man in a padded cell screaming from the echoes of a fraying consciousness in his head. Be Recovery One, be the man you need to be to survive this. Your own little bit of torture, your echo of Alpha’s torture, all because it’s the only way of coping Epsilon’s rampage left to him.

It’s more rote than anything that places the charges, that registers Delta’s presence, that calls up the AI. Recovery One is a cynical man, hard and brusk and focused on his task. Recovery One feigns less memory of Project Freelancer than Agent Washington would have. It’s easier to be Recovery One than Wash right now, so he doesn’t complain behind the little wall that keeps his personality away from his muscle memory and training. But listening to Delta, knowing that voice again, he suddenly knows. Suddenly understands.

The Director wouldn’t have let the AIs who went rogue with their agents back into the fold. That was why York and North were let to flee, why Texas got away so easily. They knew too much, or suspected too much. They did what they did because somehow someone put two and two together and amazingly got four. The AIs were always looking for the Alpha, always wanted to know where they came from. Maybe it was Texas, maybe it was Delta, but whatever it was they had worked together for the sake of Alpha, hadn’t they? If he’d known…

But he hadn’t. And before he knows it rote isn’t enough. Wyoming is there, shooting at him, and the gunfire is all he can focus on. While their specialties were different, they were both good. Really good. All he can do is focus on the fight, because he needs to win this, needs to survive. Can’t let Delta fall into it’s hands like the others. Then, as suddenly as Wyoming is attacking, he’s running. Delta warns him about the countdown. Then it’s Recovery One’s legs that are going, not his, because part of Washington wants to stay. Fuck the mission, fuck the work, here he can find peace. Find freedom.

Then Recovery One is on his way to the Mongoose, radioing in his status. Slowly Wash starts to pull down the partition. It’s a long way back, and he’s got a chance to breathe. A chance to think. A chance to mourn.

Another beacon. Partition restored. Just a fragment kept apart from the whole because anything else would find him shattering and he can’t do that now, can’t handle that now. He’s already broken enough, and broken doesn’t do the job. Recovery One does.

He doesn’t know if it’s fate or luck. So long without a sign of either of them, and then both so close together. Both dead. The partitions slam up before he can even bother to think about it. Just a set of purple and green armor on the ground and he stops. Stops being hopeful. Stops being suspicious. Stops compassion and patience and everything that was David. All that is left is bits and pieces and obedience as he grills South. And behind the walls he rages. How was this possible? Of all of them, of all of them, it couldn’t have been North. Never North. They all knew about the domed energy shield. They knew how good Theta was with it. Nothing could touch North, even unaware, unless he allowed it. Which meant…

Suspicion not found, even though he’s looking directly at South. Recovery One only cares about the situation as reported. It’s David that feels that he should know better, but doesn’t question it. David behind the walls that Epsilon didn’t mean to teach him. What happened to Alpha wasn’t supposed to be repeated, especially not in a living, breathing human. Repressed memories, sure. Coping strategies, yes. But this… This was its own abomination.

And yet there’s still something of David there, because Recovery One is given the order, and David stays his hand. Maybe it’s easier to be bits and pieces held off from the whole, but North… Wouldn’t want her dead. Not that North or York would want what he was doing to himself. He’s becoming what the Director did to Alpha. He’s becoming what Epsilon and the other AIs were. Yet there’s still a part of David in the core, and so he doesn’t, won’t, can’t kill South. There’s no time to grieve, but he can’t kill her. For North’s sake. Because South and Delta are all he has left of North and York, and he can’t let them fall now.

Suspicion, logic, distrust all behind the partitions, except toward Delta and what the AI would learn in his head. So he doesn’t hesitate to demand backup from South. Doesn’t put two and two together. Lets her stand behind him. The partition comes down too late in the face of his screaming subconscious, and just in time for the betrayal to scream again in his head. Echoes of Epsilon roiling and ranting and he’s come up too short, failed once again because he’s on the ground broken and she’s using him for bait.

He should have seen it coming. Another would have seen it coming. But he’s as broken now as he was the second Epsilon touched his mind for the first time and poured out all its pain and suffering into him. No amount of walls, of fracturing, of breaking himself can truly hold back the knowledge that he’s failed again. Willfully failed because it was easier to be Recovery One, to be Alpha, than to be David. Easier to forget she had blamed him for not getting an AI, for the collapse of the program, for ruining her life.

He hid behind the walls in his mind and was left behind, lying there on the ground, bleeding out. Left behind again. Just like Wash and North did. Except this time not to protect him, to save something. No, left behind to protect herself, to get what she felt she was denied. To save her own neck. South betrayed him for the very thing that ruined them all.

It hurts when Maine takes the enhancements, both his and York’s, from him. More because Maine is strong, has never been gentle, has always been straight to the point. Meta is worse, stronger, cares less, only wants to restore what Sigma was always searching for: the Alpha. Strange that, seeing as Sigma helped to tear Alpha down bit by bit.

Then Meta is gone. He lays there for a while, breathing slowly as the walls in his mind finally fail. They collapse in his mind and he lays there still, weeping into his suit. They are gone. More gone now than they ever were before. He’s left behind again. And the only thing he can do is to keep moving. Keep living. It’s what they would want of him. What they tried to give him. All he had left.

The tears stop. Grief, pain, confusion, guilt all slammed behind the partition again, and he’s Recovery One. Not because he wants to be, but because he needs to be.

Because without Recovery One he’s just a broken soldier with no time to grieve, no freedom, and no hope left.


End file.
